Jake Adam York is the author of three books of poems—Murder Ballads (2005), winner of the 2005 Elixir Press Prize in Poetry, A Murmuration of Starlings (2008), winner of the 2009 Colorado Book Award in Poetry, and Persons Unknown (2010). His poems have appeared in Anti-, Blackbird, The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, Diode, Greensboro Review, New South, Northwest Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, Southern Spaces, Third Coast , and other journals. Originally from Alabama, York is now Associate Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he co-edits Copper Nickel. He is a 2011-2012 Visiting Faculty Fellow at Emory University's James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference.